


Sarek and the Firebird

by icarus_chained



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Happy Ending, Interspecies Romance, Katra, Love, Marriage Proposal, Romance, Souls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 22:30:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4454867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A daemon was an embodied soul, a katra given voice and form and left to walk outside its owner. Sarek found that such a strange and alien idea, even still. And yet, despite that, he could not help but find her beautiful, this human woman and her peacock soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sarek and the Firebird

**Author's Note:**

> Amanda: Logic! Logic! I'm sick to death of logic! Do you want to know how I feel about your logic?  
> Spock: Emotional, isn't she?  
> Sarek: She has always been that way.  
> Spock: Indeed. Why did you marry her?  
> Sarek: At the time, it seemed the logical thing to do.  
> \--- Journey to Babel, Star Trek: the Original Series

"His name is Leander," the human woman informed him lightly. Sarek blinked, watching as she leaned down to stroke the head of the creature standing at her feet. A large bird, with a truly startling array of feathers. "He's peacock, if that's what you're wondering. They're a type of Earth bird. A very handsome type, I might add."

She looked up at him again, with a smile on that so-expressive face, and Sarek took that as welcome enough to step closer. He kept his hands carefully behind his back, and nothing but mild interest on his own features. 

"He is aesthetically pleasing," he chanced to agree, eyeing her curiously. And then, remembering what the peacock _was_ , quite aside from what it looked like, he hastily amended: "If that is not an inappropriate thing to say."

She laughed. It was an oddly pleasing sound. Sarek didn't quite know what to make of that thought, and so focused back on Ms Grayson instead. She shook her head and straightened up to look at him properly. He thought that her smile, when she offered it, was meant to be reassuring.

"It can hardly be inappropriate when I said it first," she chided, with a sparkle of humour in her eyes that Sarek quite possibly should not have noticed. "And for reference, a human woman is rarely displeased by a compliment towards her daemon. It shows an appreciation for her spirit and character." She paused for a second, her humour taking on a more mischievous edge. "Though, of course, since you did not know that, perhaps that was not your intent...?"

Sarek blinked rapidly. "I ... I would not know enough of your character yet to appreciate it or otherwise," he managed, and wondered distantly why so logical a statement should somehow feel so inadequate. This woman had had that effect on him from the moment he'd met her, and he could not fathom why. "Forgive me. I understand that another human could tell much from your daemon, but as yet I have only the barest understanding of their individual significance. What education I have received in their regard was diplomatic in focus, and thus concerned more generally with their nature and function, and on the most prominent cultural taboos and requirements relating to them. I apologise if I have offended you by my ignorance."

It was practically a stammer, that speech. He almost frowned, vaguely irritated at himself. Was this all the control he could muster? What was it about this woman that disconcerted him so, that he must babble out explanations at such length?

Worse, it seemed that she had noticed his distress. How appalling not only to feel it, but to allow it to be _seen_. Had he forgotten himself so completely?

"I'm sorry," she said. She moved closer to him, though as always she took care not to touch, and offered up an apologetic smile. "You didn't offend me, Ambassador. You needn't worry. I was only teasing you a little, and I apologise for it in my turn. It was inconsiderate of me."

Sarek raised an eyebrow. "Teasing?" he asked, beginning to wonder if he ought to be offended himself. "To what purpose, madam? I thought I had not offended you."

"You haven't," she assured, before looking away slightly. A faint pink colour appeared in her cheeks, a biological mechanism among humans that signalled illness or embarrassment. A flush, that was the term. "It's ... Well. It's something humans sometimes do with people that interest them, that's all. We don't always do it out of a desire to hurt or embarrass. Often, it's considered a sign of affection or interest."

Sarek stared at that. His second eyebrow went up to join his first. Affection or ...? 

"I ... see," he said, not seeing at all. "I was not aware of any interest towards myself on your part, Ms Grayson, but I am glad not to have offended you. That, at least, was never my intent."

"Nor mine," she said, looking back at him with a relieved expression. Her cheeks were still feathered with pink, but her eyes were bright and curious once more. He found himself staring at them. It was odd to notice such things, to be able to see them in the first place. Sarek wasn't sure if he'd ever get used to how very _expressive_ humans were, how open in their emotions and their desires.

And in more than one sense, as well. He looked behind the woman, to where her daemon fanned his feathers in a vaguely defensive gesture, studying Sarek curiously with avian eyes. It was an odd sensation, to be studied so blatantly by someone's very soul. For that was what daemons were, he was told. A katra, given voice and form, and left to walk around by its owner's side. An embodied soul, separate and yet bound. Such a strange concept, even now. So very alien and illogical an idea. How did it feel, to be always so bare to the universe? To be able to read so deeply of each other just from sight? How could they stand it?

It was not the same as telepathy. A vulcan might sense a death over distance, the most general of thoughts and emotions from a touch, and even the depths of a mind via the meld or the bond. But they could not know a soul by sight. A katra was not for such casual view, to be held up to the universe to be scrutinised so blithely. 

They were not wholly defenceless, of course. Human society demanded some protection for the katras left so very vulnerable in their midst. Daemons were not to be touched without permission, under _any_ circumstances. Sarek had been informed of that in the very strongest of terms. It was the greatest of human taboos, anathema of the highest order. To cage someone's katra in your hands, to hold it against their will ... Sarek understood the logic behind _that_ taboo, at least. As a vulcan, a touch-telepath, he understood it very well indeed. 

But still. It did not seem sufficient. Not when one's katra, one's 'spirit and character', as Ms Grayson had called it, lay so very bare for all to see.

She followed his gaze now. She looked down at her own daemon, perhaps wondering what it was that Sarek saw when he looked at it, and then she looked back at him, something soft and strange in her face, a human expression that he had not the experience to read. He broke the stare he had been holding with her daemon in order to study that expression instead. One could not grow to understand that which they were not willing to face, after all.

"... Peacocks have long been considered an ornamental bird," she said at last, slowly and thoughtfully while she watched him. Sarek only blinked. There was something oddly serious and intent in her manner as she continued to explain. "They are beautiful, you see, and so people would buy them, and have them walk around their gardens and look pretty for visitors. They were a beautiful possession, and a sign of status. So in many eyes, to have a peacock daemon is considered a sign of someone who is aware of their own beauty. Someone who wishes to be ornamental, someone who wishes to be kept. You understand?"

... No. No, Sarek did not. He looked down at her, feeling that frown finally crease his brow, and this time making no effort to stop it. He knew nothing of daemons nor of how to interpret them, but if he had been asked to judge the woman before him, that ... would not have been his impression. Beautiful this woman may be, but 'ornamental' seemed less than accurate. Though, as he had said, perhaps he did not know enough of her nature to judge.

But no. He saw it as she looked at him, as she caught his confusion and his perhaps overly-instinctive denial. He saw her pleasure not to be so judged.

"It would be no terrible thing," she said softly. "If it were true, if that were truly what a peacock meant, it would not be some terrible crime. But people forget. Humans. They forget that peacocks were not always the pets they were made to be. Once upon a time, they were other things. Firebirds, phoenixes, dragons. A peacock soul may be content and beautiful in its cage, but that is not always all that it longs for. People forget that peacocks, however lovely they are on the ground, are still birds. When they need to, when they want to, a peacock can _fly_."

Her daemon moved, in that moment. To prove her words, to show his support and agreement with her. Sarek could not be sure. He didn't understand yet how independent these joined-yet-separate katras might be. Yet her daemon chose that moment to beat his wings in a harsh thunder of noise and movement, and then Sarek was treated to a sight that apparently many humans had forgotten could exist. Dumbfounded and mute, he met the eyes of a peacock soul, and watched as it took flight.

It was beautiful, he thought distantly. Not emotionally. A statement of fact could not be emotional. And yet, he felt something stir inside him. Not an emotion, not anything he had ever experienced. An alien sensation for which he had no explanation. For one second, entirely nonsensically, he had a thought that his katra had moved within him. That his soul, kept safe inside him where none might see it, had caught sight of hers in its flight, and for that one moment had yearned to join it. 

So strange a thing was a daemon. So strange, and so very, very beautiful.

"They are laid bare for all to see," Amanda whispered softly beside him, watching him as he watched her daemon. "I know that's something your people don't understand, and don't particularly like either. But just because they are seen, Ambassador, does not always mean that they are understood. Even a human soul may hide its nature, until someone comes along to whom it is worth revealing."

He looked at her once more. Her peacock had banked and turned and come to land again at her side, its shining feathers arranged now in defence and not in flight. At least, he _thought_ it was in defence. A fragment of a thought occurred to him, that some Earth birds raised such feathers in _courtship_ as well. 

She gazed up at him, that expression on her face that he began to realise was some combination of human fear and human courage. She smiled, tentatively, but it was neither mischief nor humour in her eyes now.

"One more point of interest," she offered, shrugging her shoulders a little ruefully. "My daemon is called Leander. I don't think we knew, at first, how pertinent it would turn out to be. In one human mythology, Leander was a young man whose love lived across a great strait of water. Every night, Leander would swim to her across it, until the night he drowned for it. He was someone who was willing to cross any gap that might divide them, you see. Out of love, and no matter what it might have cost."

Oh. At last, Sarek understood. Her part, at least. Affection or interest, she had said. Love. With a human's fearlessness, a human's openness, she said love.

And somewhere inside him, his katra answered.

"... To love without regard for consequence is illogical," he said, as if from a distance, and watched her face fall in front of him. Again, as he had from the moment he met her, he knew a moment where logic seemed entirely inadequate.

She smiled at him again, but sadly now, and behind her Sarek would swear that her daemon hissed at him in displeasure. "Of course," she said, with a sudden fragility that he found he did not like. "Another difference between our peoples, Ambassador. Forgive me. I hope I did not offend you by the discussion--"

"We do not have such myths on Vulcan," he interrupted, fumbling once more to explain, as only she could make him. "Not anymore. Such a destructive love would be considered illogical in the extreme. But we do ... We do marry, and love within that marriage. If ... if that is what both parties should desire."

She did not understand, for a moment. She did not dare hope, and Sarek found himself unable to unbend enough to offer support in the human manner. If he let slip his control now, even that far, then he did not know what might slip forth. He could not loosen his calm facade for her sake. But she was not unintelligent, this strange human woman with her peacock soul. She had drawn him from the first, and that was no small part of the reason why. After a moment, a joy dawning across her features like a peacock's wings in flight, he could see that she had taken his meaning. He could see it brought her pleasure.

He could see that it was, indeed, what both parties should desire.

She took his hands in hers. She had never dared before, knowing enough of vulcans to understand that it was not done lightly. He let her, and gladly, though the sudden sensation of her joy and her ... her _love_ ... sent a shudder through him. It was an alien thing, her touch. Like her daemon, like everything else about her, it was no less beautiful for that.

"And, ah," she said, with that sparkle of mischief once more in her eyes. Her daemon pressed close against her legs, and spread shining feathers in their mutual glee. "And marriage is logical, is it? On Vulcan. Marriage is considered logical?"

And for that moment at least, Sarek could truthfully say that never in his life had it seemed more so.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd been meaning to do a proper TOS crew daemon AU, where humans have daemons but many aliens don't, but it kept not working for me. Except, oddly, for these two. So. Here you go?
> 
> Amanda's daemon is of course a peacock, which do indeed look [amazing in flight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peafowl#/media/File:Peacock_Flying.jpg), and possibly were part of the inspiration for the Slavic [firebird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebird_\(Slavic_folklore\)). The legend she tells Sarek about, that her daemon is named after, is the Greek story of [Hero and Leander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_and_Leander).


End file.
